For what it’s worth one of the guys we hired from Canada was in his late fifties.

I see engineers at Cisco in their 50’s all the time.

I think you can get away with that in tighter labor markets like San Jose, I tell you it’s really crazy up there.
Don’t know how much longer that will last but if you have software talent and you really need a Job (and cannot find one in SD of course), that’s the place to go.

My two cents given the two options, (20 percent pay cut and haul my own stuff to TX) or San Jose I would head north, but that’s just my opinion.